Crazy Monkeys on Game Design.

October 30, 2009http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/1894-trauma-preview

I am glad to annouce the preview from Krystian Majewskis upcoming game “Trauma“, that will be released for free later that year. He worked at it for really a long time now – and renamed the game now from “Illucinated” to “TRAUMA”. The game is a little bit like a “point and click adventure”, but it focus is on “creating a rich experience rather than an elaborate puzzle challenge”. The game is meant to be played by a literate and mature audience. The game features an unconventional approach, telling the story of a woman, that tries to get herself after having a car accident. Watch the video, to get convinced, that this game follows more higher reasons, than just to please for some minutes of fun.

October 29, 2009http://gamedesignreviews.com/scrapbook/trauma-preview/

Hello again. I’ve been on a hiatus for some time to focus on finishing Illucinated for the upcoming IGF submission deadline. And I am glad to announce that I have been successful. Illucinated is now called TRAUMA. A tiny Website is available here. But most importantly, here is a (slightly blurry due to SD-Quality capture) [...]

October 28, 2009http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/1869-robochi-gets-flamed

What a wonderful short movie. This is almost a little bit too extremely cute. I love it! More of this stuff at the site of Jonathan Kim. He says about himself at his page the insanely brilliant words: “I can save my progress ANYWHERE.” So go for it!

October 23, 2009http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/1880-wild-wind-pixel-short

Wild Wind is the title of an accurate pixel-animation short, that shows a very, very everyday-situation (for the other half) I guess nobody really likes. It could be the perfectly opener for a perfectly accurate game. I think that much of the sounds are doing the magic at this shortmovie. Wild Wild was made by Leonardo Campasso – in pixels. Like Drawn says, the guy is only 21, making Flash stuff since the age of 12.

October 20, 2009http://digitaltools.node3000.com/blog/1873-casual-gameplay-design-competition-6

October 14, 2009http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scnclr/~3/QvSBqh87bXw/82-will-show-artworks-at-journey-in-aachen

I will show some artworks in the form of room-installation on the 17. October 2009 at Plan B in Aachen. There is lot of things going on at this day. At day there is the “Journey to the End of the Night” urban game playing in the streets of Aachen, and also Vienna at the same time. More info at the Journey Aachen website.

At night there will be a heavyweight netlabelparty, where I contribute some “deko” and “visuals”. I hope to provide pictures of this event. More about the party at Journey website and Netaudio-NRW.

October 11, 2009http://digitaltools.node3000.com/research-and-theory/1842-street-fighter-15-pixel-renderings

At the The U.K. games festival Gamecity they came up with some experimental works. The “Alaskan Military School design collective” should translate gaming experienced into a grid with 15 pixels in total (5×3). Here for example we have Street Fighter translated:

The GameCity-committee says about this work:

They each take one of our favourite games at GameCity HQ and translate them into a 15 pixel grid. It’s Hyper pixel minimalism! We realised that you can communicate the essence of great, iconic games with minimal visual information.

To be honest.. What the hell are they talking about? It should at least be possible to work out a game with a small grid – but not the other way around. This approach here doesn’t work for me. Look for example at Gamma 256 (results) or Mignonette.

October 4, 2009http://gamedesignreviews.com/scrapbook/episodic-gaming-fallacy/

Here is a quick thought I had recently. Fable II was just released in episodes on XBLA. Also, Episodic Gaming has been discussed in one of the recent Brainy Gamer podcasts. The idea is: instead of releasing one big, long, expensive game, you chop it up into small pieces and release it cheaper and individually. [...]

October 3, 2009http://digitaltools.node3000.com/games/1809-finwick

Finwick is an absolute lovely crafted, triple-A flashgame. In this platformer you guide Finwick and his girlfriend Pentella through different levels, in order to deliver a mail to an ecologist. It is not so much about the story, but especially gameplay, graphics and soundeffects are totally unique. Blissful game experience granted. The only word of critic has to be made about the ingame-dialogues. They are also crafted very well, but somehow the number and frequency of the speech-bubbles not really fit the rhythm of the game and they are a little bit annoying. But this is not really a fault.

The first 25 levels are available free. To unlock the whole game you will spend 5,99 dollar. The game is played in the browser and it is almost a duty to check out the demo! This platform-game was made by Small Green Hill and definitely plays in the same league like Samorost or Machinarium by Amanita Design.

October 2, 2009http://www.floriankuhlmann.com/2009/wucherndes-bild-zuhause/

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Bonoboblogs is an agglomerated blog of people who are into game design or related art. We tend to be clever and open and have fresh views on computing games. We fill the gap between experimental gameplay, game design and theory. More about.